In men, testosterone starts to decline from the age of 30.
Testosterone is the hormone that separates men from boys. It is the fundamental driver that makes men grow a beard and become muscular.
Low testosterone is a curse I would never wish on any man. As the testosterone goes down, so will your muscles, your sex drive, your motivation and, most importantly, your youth.
So, for men, it is vital to maintain a healthy level of testosterone. And eggs can play a pivotal role in increasing your testosterone level.
Disclaimer:- The information provided here should not be used as a substitute for any medical advice.
Table of Contents
How do eggs increase testosterone?
The rich cholesterol content in eggs provides the raw material to form testosterone hormone. A cholesterol deficient body cannot produce optimal levels of testosterone.
Let us see how eggs help in boosting testosterone levels in men.
Along with cholesterol, eggs have ample amounts of protein, vitamin D, and omega-3 and zinc. The blend of these vital nutrients can hike your testosterone level.
Cholesterol is (not) evil
Cholesterol is not the demon that it was made to be. For decades, dietitians and health experts persecuted eggs because of their high cholesterol content.
The whole ‘eating cholesterol can cause a heart attack hypothesis’ turned out to hold no water. A study showed that eating a high egg diet for three months had no adverse effect on heart health.
Moreover, the high egg diet helped the study participants in losing weight. Today, even the American Heart Association no longer condemns eggs as a cause of any heart disease.
How cholesterol affects testosterone levels
Video explaining how cholesterol helps in testosterone production.
The testicles are the testosterone factory. A specialized cell from testicles (Leydig cells) grabs cholesterol from the blood and converts them to testosterone.
Without enough cholesterol floating around, these special cells will not get the raw material for their testosterone factory. So the production will slow down.
Vitamin D – the sunshine vitamin
Vitamin D is called the sunshine vitamin because sunlight is the prime source of vitamin D for our body. It is a unique vitamin that acts less like a vitamin and more like a natural anabolic steroid.
Vitamin D plays a critical role in calcium absorption and in keeping our bones strong. There are only a handful of foods that contain vitamin D.
Eggs are among those few food sources of vitamin D.
How vitamin D affects testosterone production
Many studies show that there is a close relation between vitamin D and testosterone levels. High vitamin D can increase your testosterone levels.
One study showed that supplementing 3332 IU of vitamin D every day for a year increased their testosterone levels by 25.2%. Moreover, a low vitamin D level showed a drop in testosterone levels in the body.
Omega 3
Omega-3 is an essential fatty acid that our body is incapable of producing by itself. Omega-3 is vital for your brain functioning and in keeping your heart healthy. It is our responsibility to provide omega-3 through the diet.
The best source of omega-3 is fatty fish. Nevertheless, organic eggs also carry substantial amounts of omega-3.
How Omega 3 affects testosterone production
Although there is no direct impact of omega-3 on the testosterone level, it can have a positive long-term effect. Omega-3 increases the good cholesterol HDL and lowers the inflammation levels.
Having high HDL and low inflammation is critical in increasing testosterone production. Therefore, omega-3 creates a favourable environment in the body to increase testosterone production.
Zinc – The (second) most abundant trace mineral after iron
Zinc is an essential nutrient, and your body cannot produce it on its own. It is a trace mineral that performs many vital functions in our body.
It is pivotal for DNA formation, protein absorption, wound healing, and immunity-boosting. If your diet is deficient in this critical mineral, it can affect your health.
Eating eggs will ensure that you don’t fall short of zinc.
How zinc affects testosterone production
Besides all the above vital functions, zinc has a direct impact on your testosterone levels. Even moderate zinc deficiency can cause a condition called hypogonadism (testosterone deficiency).
A 1996 research showed how much zinc can affect testosterone levels. The researchers gave a zinc-deficient diet to young men for twenty weeks. In those twenty weeks, their testosterone levels went down from an average of 39.9 nmol/L to 10.6 nmol/L.
The researchers, however, went a step ahead and tested if the increase in zinc can increase testosterone levels. They took men with minor zinc deficiency and gave them zinc supplements for six months.
After six months, their blood testosterone levels shot up. From a measly 8.6 nmol/L, their average testosterone level went up to 16.0 nmol/L.
This experiment reveals how the zinc status can impact your testosterone levels.
To sum up in simple terms: eggs, packed with all these testosterone promoting nutrients, make a significant impact on our testosterone levels.
But there remains one missing puzzle piece. We still do not know how many eggs we can eat in a day to get its testosterone boosting benefits.
How many eggs in a day can increase testosterone?
Three to four eggs will be a decent number to see a spike in testosterone level.
Say, for example, a three-egg omelette for breakfast and one hard-boiled egg as an evening snack.
Additionally, if you do strength training or any strenuous workout, you can go up to six to eight whole eggs in a day.
However, not just the quantity, the quality of eggs matter too. Organic eggs will have higher nutrient content than the eggs coming from grain-fed chickens.
Moving on, if you worry about the high cholesterol content of eggs: there is nothing to fear.
Studies after studies have proven that there is no connection between eating eggs and heart diseases. Also, there are no upper limits set on eggs that say more than this number of eggs will affect your heart health.
Plus, the fat present in eggs is not entirely saturated fat. It is:
40 to 45% saturated
55 to 60% unsaturated
But all the testosterone boosting effects will become nil if you do not avoid foods that can damage your testosterone levels.
Therefore, it is equally important to know and avoid foods that kill testosterone.
9 Testosterone destroying foods you should stay away from
1. Soy
Soy is testosterone wrecking food.
It contains a high volume of estrogen-like substance – phytoestrogen. This phytoestrogen mimics the female hormone estrogen that can disrupt the working of testosterone in men.
Thus, phytoestrogen can rob you of getting the maximum benefit from the testosterone hormone.
Moreover, soy can also suppress thyroid function. This suppression of the thyroid gland will further reduce testosterone production.
On top of it all, soy also contains an exorbitant amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). The high polyunsaturated fatty acids cause a steep decline in testosterone production.
2. Sugar
Do not let the sweet taste of sugar blind you from its health-damaging effects on your testosterone.
One study on 74 men (aged between 19 to 74) showed that after chugging down a 75gm glucose solution experienced a drop of up to 25% in their testosterone levels. And it remained low for up to two hours. Next time think about this research finding before drinking a bottle of your favourite soda.
High sugar consumption will also increase inflammation and body fat. Both these factors can bring down your testosterone.
3. Alcohol
Beer, spirit, and wine can plummet your testosterone levels. Occasional drinks do not cause any testosterone disruption. But frequent drinks can cause massive damage to your testosterone production.
Also, if you are a frequent or heavy drinker, low testosterone will not be the only problem at hand. Apart from being a testosterone killer, alcohol abuse will damage your liver, kidney and heart.
4. Bakery items like bread, cookies, dessert
Many people eat bread or biscuit with sugar-loaded tea as a morning or evening snack. Also, many like to eat some dessert after a meal.
These dietary blunders are throwing your testosterone down the health mountain.
Baked goods and desserts can spike your insulin levels and increase your belly fat. Both these issues can leave you with low testosterone and high frustration.
Moreover, many baked foods like biscuits, cookies, cakes and pastries contain high amounts of trans fat. Trans fat is also a testosterone suppressor.
5. Trans fat and junk foods
Trans fat is made by hydrogenation of vegetable oil. The hydrogenation process makes this fat highly inflammatory, which can put your health at serious risk.
Trans fat is associated with the increased cases of diabetes, heart diseases, a decrease in good cholesterol and many other chronic diseases.
Do you think with all these adverse effects on your body, the testosterone levels will not get affected.
Trans fat is used in many processed foods like biscuits, fried chicken, baked goods, microwave popcorn. These types of junk food will not do any favour to your health or your testosterone. Stay away from junk foods.
6. Vegetable oil
Refined vegetable oils like soybean oil, cottonseed oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and peanut oil are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA).
It is easy-peasy to over consume PUFA as we make most of our food using these oils. High PUFA intake can increase inflammation and sharply decrease testosterone levels.
One study on men suffering from hypogonadism (low testosterone) found that adding vegetable oils with high PUFA significantly lowers blood testosterone levels.
7. Fried foods
Many Indian street snacks like samosa, kachori, chole bhature, puri bhaji, sev are all deep-fried in vegetable oils.
When you fry any food in vegetable oil, it soaks up tons of PUFA.
So eating these fried foods means taking a high dose of PUFA. As we have seen already, high PUFA can wreak havoc on your testosterone levels.
8. Flaxseed
Seeing flaxseed on the list of testosterone destroying foods must come as a shock to many. Flaxseed is a powerhouse of nutrients and a superb source of omega-3 for vegetarians.
Along with its beneficial health effects, flaxseed also contains an outrageous amount of dietary lignans.
Lignans can affect the functioning of testosterone. It prevents the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, which your body needs. It is like you have the money, but you cannot spend it.
9. Peanuts
Peanuts are another surprise entry to this list. Although peanut and peanut butter are nutritious foods, they are not favourable for your testosterone levels.
Peanuts contain high levels of the compound beta-sitosterol, which can decrease the enzymes vital for testosterone production.
Furthermore, peanuts are rich in testosterone lowering fat PUFA. 28 peanuts contain about 161 calories and 14 grams of fat. And most of this fat is in the form of PUFA.
That means peanuts can drastically affect the testosterone production of the body. So eating peanuts or peanut butter will not be a wise idea if you want to increase your testosterone levels.
Ensure that these testosterone destroying foods are not a part of your daily diet. By removing these foods from your diet, you can halt the decline of your testosterone further down.
When it comes to boosting testosterone levels, eggs will be my number one recommendation. Nevertheless, eggs are not the only foods capable of elevating your testosterone levels.
I say, why limit yourself to just eggs. There are many more testosterone boosting foods that can assist in your pursuit of bringing your testosterone back to optimal levels.
21 Foods with testosterone boosting properties
Ginger |
Garlic |
Onion |
Turmeric (Haldi) |
Mushroom |
Sweet potato |
Kidney beans (Rajma) |
Coconut oil |
Grass-fed butter |
Banana |
Pomegranates |
Avocados |
Strawberries |
Brazilian nuts |
Raisins (Kishmish) |
Spinach (Palak) |
Broccoli |
Tuna |
Salmon |
Shellfish |
Oysters |
Although foods play a significant role in boosting your testosterone levels. There are, however, few other lifestyle factors that can have a striking impact on your testosterone levels.
Do strength training to build up your testosterone levels
Strength training can stimulate better secretion of testosterone. It can help you gain muscles and lose weight. Building muscles requires testosterone.
The more muscles you have, the greater the concentration of testosterone will be in your body. Additionally, you also lose weight with strength training which is a crucial factor to increase your testosterone.
Get quality sleep and see your testosterone rise up
If you do everything right but fail to get a good night’s sleep, it can drastically diminish testosterone.
Additionally, lack of sleep will be detrimental to your overall health. Getting quality sleep is vital for your testosterone levels to remain at optimal levels.
Minimize stress levels to maximize testosterone
Long-term stress will increase the stress hormone cortisol.
Cortisol and testosterone have a seesaw type relation. If one goes up, the other goes down. Elevated cortisol will rapidly lower testosterone. It will also cause weight gain and an increase in belly fat.
Simply put, high cortisol will hammer down your testosterone levels.
Conclusion
What is the one thing common in all the strong, masculine, and successful men? They all have high levels of testosterone.
Low testosterone will cause erectile dysfunction, low libido, depression and, most notably, it can give you man boobs. Therefore, you must focus on boosting your testosterone levels.
Here, eggs can be of great assistance.
The egg is a man’s food. Eggs increase testosterone, and testosterone is what makes a man.
So, for men over 30, eggs must become an integral part of their diet.
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